Smarte Solutions Inc., the leading provider of piracy management solutions, and DCA Inc., an industry-leading provider of mastering equipment for CDs and DVDs, have announced an agreement whereby Smarte Solutions' copy protection system, SmarteCD(tm), will be supported within DCA's encoding equipment, allowing for the secure replication of SmarteCD-protected CDs and DVDs. This agreement is an industry-standard for reliable copy protected software at the equipment level...

According to the agreement, DCA will enable their encoding equipment to support SmarteCD's protection technology during the signal processing of optical disc masters. The result is a fail-safe mechanism for eliminating vulnerabilities within the mastering process by altering the media and preventing it from being duplicated or digitally reproduced, rendering a pirated copy useless.

"Enabling SmarteCD piracy management technology within our equipment allows our customers to deliver an increased level of copy protection for their clientele's software and Intellectual Property," said Doug Carson, president of DCA Inc. "This alliance will provide a much-needed assurance to our clients that providing SmarteCD will be a simple addition to their existing processes."

SmarteCD offers a cost-effective and flexible piracy management solution that resides entirely within the CD media itself. The transparent technology can distinguish an originally licensed CD from a forgery. The result is that software manufacturers can effectively render forged application CDs unusable by preventing unauthorized users from copying CD-ROM content to the hard drive.

"When it comes to copy protection, many people think of the entertainment industry," said Joshua Duhl, consultant, Rich Digital Asset Management, eBusiness Applications at IDC Research. "But this level of protection will benefit multiple types of markets that produce software solutions, including research reports, university courseware and licensed software that are currently losing significant revenue to piracy on a daily basis.